*Actress Yvette Nicole Brown — best known for her roles in “Community,” “The Office,” and “The New Odd Couple” — portrayed Michael Bivins’ mother, Shirley Bivins in the New Edition biopic which aired in January.
As it turns out, Yvette and Michael go way back… to when she was signed to his label, Biv 10 Records. During a recent interview with musician Harry Connick Jr., Yvette revealed that she was not only a singer on Biv’s label but that Mike was also her manager.
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She also credits New Edition’s former long-time bodyguard-turned-TV producer, Jeff Dyson for being the reason she’s a successful actress today.
She met Jeff back in the day when she begged him to let her backstage so she could sing for New Edition, but Jeff told her ‘No.’
Instead, he gave Yvette the location of the hotel N.E. was staying at so she could later run into them there but he made her promise not to tell them that he revealed their location to her.
Much to her surprise, Jeff’s plan worked.
Yvette ‘ran into’ the group at the hotel and she got to sing for Mike Bivins right there on the spot. The rest is history!
Peep the clip below, where they talk about this at the 0:44 mark.
Meanwhile, Brown has certainly faced her share of pay inequality in Hollywood, and she shared an experience that occurred earlier in her career, as a series regular on “Community,” where she discovered she was making “just a smidge” more than a white male guest star, and far less than some of the other series regulars.
“It’s not like this was Tom Cruise,” she told Variety’s 2017 salary issue. “If Tom Cruise comes, back up the Brinks truck. This was a journeyman actor. He wasn’t performing a series-regular role.”
“I’ve been a series regular now for eight years on network television, and I’m making what a guy coming for a week is making. And it’s because I’m a black woman,” Brown continued.
